A thread I started at SEOChat several days ago on the subject of MSN's improved SERPs has become a raging debate over what MSN should do to better promote it's new, improved search engine and why it can or cannot take market share away from Google.

Some individuals are taking the view that MSN has no chance to compete:

Google specializes in search - it is their flagship products, people like to do business with specialists. Search will always be a side-project for MS, a part of their portal, their software, etc. but *not* their actual product.

Just because there are news about the company does not mean that your average joe knows about it and survey results will prove that. 82% of my non-MSN users have never heard about the new M! I think that number says a lot.

While other feel that MSN's chances are quite strong, indeed:

MSN will probably beat Google, eventually. If they don't get side tracked. Someone mentioned it earlier, but it comes down to capitalization. Last I checked Microsoft was sitting on $30-$40 billion in cash/short term holdings, while everyone keeps talking about Google being overpriced.

In reality, google came in late too, though. A ton of sites did search before google. Google just did it better, so it won out. Its possible for an up and comer to do it again - MSN or otherwise.

And a lot of folks don't seem to realize that MSN Search has its own URL:

What would truly help MSN search would be this:
Put a gigantic search box in the middle of their main pages and quit hiding it in the top banner like a general search box of site.

I end up reading the usually pointless articles that are in the middle of the page, then switch over to Google and search. Google has an advantage in that it does not try to be anything but search, at least at www.google.com.

My own feelings on the subject are that MSN will need serious help taking away market share from Google & Yahoo!, both of which will be nipping on its tails if not overtaking it with their own new technology developments in the future. The web search space is extraordinarily competitive and unlike some, I don't believe that slow erosion is what can take Yahoo! or MSN to the top - I think it will have to be a huge, positive event for them or a big, negative hit against Google to make people change their minds. I have doubts that the search wars are similiar to the browser wars - no Firefox is going to slowly steal away users in this market.